Ojibway 'Netflix' launches on Apple store

The world's first Indigenous language TV streaming applaunched on the AppStore Tuesday,allowing people to accessOjibway education and entertainment programming through an Apple TV device.

TheWinnipeg-based developers jokingly call it "theOjibwayNetflix." It's all part of a high-tech push to keep Canada'sIndigenous languages from disappearing.

"This tool brings the exclusive Ojibway language into the classroom, into the living room, into the home with the young kids," said DarrickBaxter, founder and CEO ofOgokiLearning Inc. He's originally from the Sandy BayOjibwayFirst Nation in Manitoba.

"The tech now, with Google Chrome, with set-top boxes, with smart TVs, withiPads in the home all the time, it's a perfect opportunity to start to teach and revitalize and reinvigorate the mind of young people to start to speak Ojibway."

Baxter and his team have already released about 130smartphoneand tabletappsto learn languages.But this is the first tostreamOjibwaylanguage TV programming both teaching videos they've createdand content from other sources.

They hope to get the platform into schools and homes as a learning tool, but also as an entertainment source.

For nowthe content is free, but Baxter may eventually movetowardsubscriptions, pay-per-view or advertising to help pay for content. Hiswork isn't funded by any government grants.

More than 70Indigenous languages

Canada has more than 70Indigenous languages, grouped into 12 distinct language families.

The family with the largest number of people is Algonquian, which includes Cree, Ojibway, Innu/Montagnais and Oji-Cree.

According to the 2016 census, the number of Aboriginal people who could speak a native tongue has grown by 3.1 per cent since 2006. One in five First Nations people reported being able to conduct a conversation.

It also found more people mostly young are learning an Indigenous language as a second language.

• Click here to see a map of Indigenous languages
• Indigenous languages lost and found

It alsofound more peoplemostly youngare learning an Indigenous language as a second language.

'Pressures towardlanguage loss'

Ojibway, Cree and Dakota are some of the languages expected to survive at least another 50 years, but that doesn't mean they're not endangered, saysCary Miller, head of the Native Studies program at the University of Manitoba.

"There certainly have been pressures towardlanguage loss, both the historical context of boarding schools and adoption outside of community, as well as the innundation of new media which has all been in predominantly French or English," she says.

As the Indigenous population grows in Canada, Millerbelieves healthcare workers, social workers, police and justice officials should also be exposed to their languages.

"The more we can encourage to see our Indigenous languages as normative, as part of Canadian culture, the better we are. Both in terms of bringing them into that language and crossing those communication barriers, but also preserving our language," she says, adding initiatives such as Ojibway TV could help.

"Having these kinds of accessible media opportunities for using the language is enormously important for keeping it. It not only gets reinforced in the classrooms with our exercises and speaking, but now there's fun media content that we can watch and listen to in our downtime. It extends the amount of time of day that you're spending on language. It extends the vocabulary that you're exposed to."

Ojibway 'Netflix' launches on Apple store

7 years ago

Duration 2:06

The world's first Indigenous language TV streaming app launched on the App Store Tuesday, allowing people to access Ojibway education and entertainment programming through an Apple TV device.

Darrick Baxter would love to see people create content for Ojibway TV like Netflix is doing maybe an Indigenous version of Stranger Things,Riverdaleor 13 Reasons Why.

"Myson puts on Youtube all the time and he watches videos on whatever it might be, so why not reach them with this cartoon video?" Baxter says.

"Each of us play an important role in saving the Ojibway language. If it's a parent teaching a young kid, if it's a grandparent just saying a few words each day. ...So right now our team, a tiny little team, is releasing this streaming app."

Indigenous language law

The federal government isdeveloping anIndigenous language law on behalf of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami,the Assembly of First Nations and the Mtis Nation.

It was initially announced in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's 2015 mandate letter to the heritage minister.

The expected law will support theTruth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to actionand theUN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.